June 24, 2013 - Harvest Monday

6/18 - Finally, enough carrots to cook for dinner! I also harvested a few beets, radishes, lettuce and strawberries.

6/19 - Yukon Gold potatoes, raspberries and a few side shoots of broccoli. It wasn't enough broccoli to cook for dinner, so I just heated it up in my bowl of vegetable soup and ate it for lunch.

6/19 - The very first tomatoes! Three little Sungolds that I shared with Mr. Granny.

6/20 - I pulled a lot of the Walla Walla onions, as the tops had fallen. The tops broke off of these, so they came inside rather than getting hung to dry. More raspberries and strawberries. I've had to pick them nearly every day this week.

6/21 - More berries.

6/ 23 - Guess what....more berries! I actually had to pick berries 6 days this week, but I didn't photograph them all.

38 comments:

Wow! Strawberries and raspberries at the same time! I am getting lots of strawberries but the raspberries are still very green yet. The cabbages and young potatoes look really delicious as well. Lots of good eating at your household.

Wow-the taters are looking great. I've been having to buy mine since February--at a local organic place for a whopping 2.50 a pound. Yikes! I'm sure gonna appreciate it when the garden starts providing those again. On a side note-I don't use those purchased Yukons for anything but potato soup-they make the best soup. I buy the cheaper organic russets for everything else....Who says a garden doesn't save money? They ought to try having to buy organic.

Oh, Mr. Granny loves the Yukon Golds in his potato salad. Last night I baked two of the "others", and I'm quite sure they are russets. They were delicious baked, but they aren't up to par with the YGs.

Random, I have just one 4'x8' raised bed of each. My biggest ever year for raspberries was 17 pounds in 2011. Last year I only got a total of 5 pounds. They are already ahead of last year's total, with 8 1/2 pounds and still going. Total strawberry yield has ranged from 18-25 pounds. Not great, but it keeps the two of us happy, and some years there's enough for jam!

Mrs. R., I wouldn't call that small handful of carrots a success. I had to pull the entire 18" square to get that many, and half of them were forked, twisted and/or stunted and went into the compost! Let's hope the later plantings are more successful. It's been a bad carrot year in Granny's garden :-(

Wow look at all those berries. I'm jealous. I picked enough raspberries today to put in my cereal but that is it. So sad. My raspberries at my last house always produced so much. I could make jam and sorbet. Not here.

Daphne, I'd be having a bumper year if the back half of the bed had done anything. I don't know if it wasn't getting enough water or if the canes were diseased, but they just got tiny berries that weren't worth picking. The canes don't look all that healthy, either. The front half of the bed is giving me the entire crop. I have a feeling it's a watering problem. The soil around the tomato plant back there against the fence is always dry, but that tomato is probably growing better than the others! You know me, I tend to overwater my tomatoes so that might end up being my best as far as flavor goes :-)

Water is my issue here. The raspberries are next to the house and they don't always get rain if the wind is blowing the wrong way. One plant died last year due to the lack of water. I ought to water them, but just haven't. They aren't in the garden proper. I never had to water my other raspberries.

Of course you kill me with all the variety you are getting already! I hope to harvest some cabbage soon, it is getting hot so I hope they can get some size on before the heat gets to them. My beets are not sizing up very quickly, nothing in that particular bed is, the soil just doesn't seem to be a good soil, it is the only bed this slow and we filled it with garden soil from a local place and I knew I didn't like it from the time we dumped it in the box! Of course this is the box with tomatoes too!

Shawn Ann, I only have one more head of spring cabbage left to pick, not counting the three-headed one, but I planted a few more for fall harvest. I also planted a bunch more beets, and hope they do better than those early ones did. At least my daughter takes the greens, which produced much better than the roots! I got bad compost from the nursery one year, and my harvest was half of what it usually is.

Anywhere, the beets were good, but rather small. The carrots and radishes were big disappointments this spring. Most of the radishes were all top with no roots, and fewer than half of that planting of carrots were useable. I don't much care about the radishes, but I hope the next plantings of beets and carrots do better.

PPC, I really don't have a lot of room. Just a 4'x8' bed of each. I started with 4 raspberry canes, and I let about six grow from each one, so there are only about 24 canes in the bed. The onions are good! Very sweet and mild.

Oh, I am so jealous! Question - how do you store the carrots you grow? I grew some last year but most went to waste because they got really soft in my refrigerator. I had removed the tops and washed them. I didn't bother planting any this year, but am still curious as to what went wrong for me.

Jennifer, I seldom have any left to store, we like carrots so much. The ones I do keep in the fridge are washed, but I leave about an inch of the tops on and just keep them in a plastic bag. I kept a bag of the forked, small deformed ones in the refrigerator for a couple of months for the dogs' treats last year. My grandmother kept carrots all winter by burying them in a washtub full of soil and storing them in her unheated basement! Of course, you could always go dig yourself a root cellar, LOL!

Your harvest this week is wonderful. Strawberries, Raspberries, Radishes, Carrots! I have picked two sungold tomatoes off mine so far! I planted zucchini in five gallon pails this year. I have two doing well in each pail. Should I pull one out so there is one to a pail or should I leave both in case something happens to one??

Nancy, I'd only grow one zucchini in a five gallon pail. The plants can get HUGE! I can see 3-4 more Sungolds turning color. I wish I'd planted a Bloody Butcher, which would probably given me ripe red tomatoes by now. Next year!

It's small in size, Nancy. Not small like a cherry tomato, but what I would call a salad tomato. It's indeterminate, very early, and has a pretty good (but not real sweet) flavor. It's an open pollinated variety, so the seeds can be saved from year to year.